


Family Privilege

by Aithilin



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Hospitals, M/M, Major Character Injury, Secret Relationship, hospital visits, secrecy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-19
Updated: 2014-05-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 16:34:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1655162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sherlock is injured and in hospital, Lestrade laments that he doesn't have family privileges.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Family Privilege

The hospital was quiet when he made his way in. It was well passed visiting hours, but a flash of his warrant card was enough to get him through the door and through the rooms to where he needed to be. No one ever questioned an officer in the halls of intensive care.

They should. He had questions. He wanted to know how bad it was, what he could do to help, what he needed to do when Sherlock could come home. If Sherlock could come home.

They told him the basics— the things covered in police reports and take. Down for evidence. They told him that “the patient” had been in an accident, and there were no prior injuries (“why they sent a Detective Inspector for a traffic accident, I don’t know”). They would need family available if anything else was to be discussed.

He tried to steal a look at the chart, but he couldn’t read it. He understood the words well enough, but not what they meant. And no one would tell him exactly what had happened to his boyfriend.

Partner. He had to keep remembering that Sherlock hated the term ‘boyfriend’ (“it’s juvenile, Lestrade. And you are certainly not a sixteen year-old girl talking about the boy she goes to movies with.”). He liked it, personally, it was sweet and soft, and just the right amount of silly to tease Sherlock with.

But regardless of what they called each other, there was no changing the law. They weren’t family.

"Sorry, sunshine," Lestrade muttered as he took up his nightly spot by the bed. He was within reach of Sherlock’s hand, and it was late enough that only Susan— the sympathetic night nurse— would be in. "Had to duck through the burn ward to get around here. They’re starting to figure it out."

Sherlock’s eyes were alert and shining, he was smiling beneath the oxygen mask still helping him breathe. It had only been three days— three days of sneaking through the hospital, hearing John talk about how Sherlock was still sleeping most of the time (John didn’t know that Sherlock was awake most of the night, listening to Lestrade read to him), and that there hadn’t been any effort to communicate when they could wake him. But now, despite the mask and bandages, the gash across Sherlock’s throat where a bit of shattered window got him and the lopsided hair from where they had to shave for the operation, Sherlock was reaching out.

Lestrade took Sherlock’s hand and carefully kissed the knuckles. “Not long tonight, sunshine. You need to be nice to the doctor tomorrow.”

At the annoyed look, he couldn’t help but smile— it was his Sherlock still there, relief flooding his mind every time he remembered that. His Sherlock cheated death. Again.

He just couldn’t tell anyone. They had agreed that they weren’t ready. Not with the work still hectic and dangerous, or Lestrade’s divorce still fresh to his team, or John’s new baby with Mary still getting the attention. There was still too much going on to make it, them public just yet.

But they would. Lestrade had vowed that the first night he had to sneak in to see Sherlock. He vowed it when his stomach had dropped when Sherlock looked at him with those pained, hazy eyes and was unable to tell him what was wrong— and the doctors wouldn’t say. He had vowed it the second he saw a woman sobbing on the benches outside, and heard a story about how she couldn’t see her girlfriend before she died because the family didn’t approve.

He pressed his lips to Sherlock’s palm, and took a deep breath. “You’ll be home soon.”

Resting back again, he smiled and pulled out the worn copy of “Murder is Easy” he had brought, and started to read.

Sherlock would be home soon.


End file.
